Four people were killed and another seriously injured in a military helicopter crash in central Burma on Wednesday, according to reports.
 
The Russian-made Mi-1 helicopter crashed in the jungle near the town of Pindaya in Shan State due to bad weather, the news agency AFP reported on Thursday, quoting a Burmese government official who spoke anonymously.

“Four people on board were killed and one was sent to a nearby hospital,” the official said in the report.

There has been no official report of the crash in the Burmese state media.

According to a Burmese blog that quoted an air force military officer in Rangoon, one of the dead was a colonel serving as the general staff officer 1 of the Eastern Regional Military Command, based in the Shan State capital of Taunggyi.

In 2001, a military helicopter crash killed the then secretary two of the ruling junta, Lt- Gen Tin Oo, along with several other high-ranking officials. The government has yet to release any information about the cause of the crash.